Modern telecommunications services, particularly wireless mobile communication devices, are essential public safety tools. During emergencies, these devices are indispensible for contacting the appropriate people or authorities. Traditionally, a person would use a mobile device to call for help when an emergency arises. During an emergency call, the caller identity and caller location (i.e., anchoring information) would be provided to the public safety answering point (PSAP) to assist the emergency handling. However, there are certain circumstances when the mobile device user may not be able to make a voice call (e.g., when the user cannot speak because of injuries, or when the user must hide his or her call for help from an assailant who is still at the scene). Under these circumstances, the person may be forced to use non-voice communications (e.g., text messaging, instant messaging, or electronic mail) because of the inherently “silent” nature of these types of communications. These types of non-voice communications, however, present a unique set of problems for use during emergencies, especially on the lack of anchoring information to the PSAP.
Therefore, there is a need for an approach that enables a user to easily and discretely communicate with emergency call operators using non-voice messages.